JOURNAL 



OF 



ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



OFFICIAL ORGAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS 



Vol. 10 DECEMBER, 1917 No. 6 



INSECTS AFFECTING COFFEE IN PORTO RICO 



By R. H. Van Zwaluwenburg, Entomologist, Porto Rico Agricultural Experiment 



Station, Mayaguez, P. R. 



Coffee has been cultivated in the island of Porto Rico for some 

 one hundred and fifty years. Previous to the coming of the Americans 

 in 1898, it was the great crop of the island, but within the past fifteen 

 years sugar has forged into first place. The coffee acreage in 1912 was 

 over 168,000 acres; the annual export value (no figures on dom-estic 

 consumption are available) of the crop for the last five years averaged 

 about $7,000,000. Although coffee ranks second in importance only to 

 sugar cane, little attention has been given to the insect pests affecting 

 it. 



In most cases it is extremely difficult to suggest practical means of 

 control for coffee insects. The average plantation has from 700 to 

 1,000 trees per acre, and the net annual profit per tree averages from 

 two to four cents. In addition, most of the plantations lie in the 

 mountains, and the character of the cofTee land is very broken. 



The best results in Porto Rico are obtained with coffee grown under 

 shade. Shade trees not only protect the plants from the direct sun, 

 but also conserve the moisture during the dry winter months. The 

 most popular trees for coffee shade are guava (Inga vera) and guamd 

 (7. laurina). Although these trees often harbor the very destructive 

 "hormiguilla," they also provide almost ideal conditions for the growth 

 of beneficial fungi. For this reason scale insects are almost never of 

 serious importance in coffee plantations. 



The literature concerning insects of coffee in Porto Rico is meagre, 

 consisting almost entirely of short notes appearing in various annual 

 reports of the Porto Rico Agricultural Experiment Station subsequent 



